Saberbugs Demo. 1.03 Analysis.

[Hado]

http://www.iceplosive.com/saberbugs103.zip

 

This is the first version.

 

There's a lot more clipping issues where sabers go right through people without damaging, especially after a victim is knocked over.

 

I'll come up with more demos soon.

[Hado]

What went right:

 

-Blocking percentages were increased, while parries, deflections, reflections, broken parries and knockaways were added. Since blocking feels much more consistent, the emphasis is put on the intricate countering system, allowing players to fight in closely instead of the hit-and-run/jousting style that was prevalent in 1.02. Increasing blocking and adding counters was an insurmountable leap in making saber battles more fun and movie-like.

 

-Added red stance chain attack system. Red chain attacks are especially fun combined with parries.

Removed turning during red stance DFA. DFA's no longer dominate large saber battles.

 

-Made blue stance faster and much more useful for countering. Blue backstab and uppercut lunge crush blocks instead of being deflected.

 

-Ammo usage for guns were altered, and blocking against guns increased. Guns no longer completely dominate FFA and Team FFA.

 

-Ability to kick midair, while removing accidental walljumps.

 

-Fixed many map hangs, crashes and *dismemberment*. Added new maps.

 

-Much easier to move people vertically with force push, pull, and grip. Players can be flung higher with force grip. Players can be pulled off the ground if you're above them.

 

-Empowered light side users by making absorb invisible, with a lower maintenance cost.

 

 

What went wrong:

 

-Added saber bugs in which sabers go right through people without touching (see included demo). Especially visible for any left or overhead attacks.

 

-Saber damage was killed, while introducing uneven, diminishing damage throughout a swing.

 

Fights are much slower paced. A single duel taking up to 10 minutes is common. Because of diminishing damage, and phantom saber strokes, Red stance takes about 3-5 cuts to kill, yellow can take 5-8, blue stance an astonishing 10 cuts in order to kill someone. What was fun and exciting about the original, was that one had to be surgically precise, because one or two hits would mean the difference between life and death.

 

Damage was reduced to the point where only one attack is left that actually works. The backstab is now the only move that can kill someone consistently. What was previously considered a stylish, rarely seen attack, used only by extremely skilled players is now considered "cheap" or "spam".

 

Because sabers no longer fight like sabers, but rather wood bokken, 1.03 has forced players to run away all day, waiting for their force pools to recharge for a pull/backstab or saberthrow. It is actually preferable to back off and run away, hoping to get a kill off someone near dead than actually fight. Anyone trying to give chase is not only slowed down every time they attack, but are also left open for saberthrows.

 

Adding saberthrows to no force duels, instead of completely removing saberthrows from any duels didn't help anything.

 

-DFA was overnerfed and is now considered next to useless. It should at least be able to bypass blocks.

 

-Yellow stance combos are no longer possible. A full swing must be completed before another stroke, like the red stance, but without the chain attacks.

 

Yellow is no longer the best stance for blocking, and parrying with it is random, because hits can still get through. It takes roughly 5-8 non-comboable strokes to kill someone. A red stance player can bust out attacks faster than a yellow stance player. The only saving grace of yellow stance is the flying overhead attack, which has instant kill capabilities, otherwise yellow has been nerfed to nearly useless status.

 

-Blocking from impossible or weird angles. What's the point of knocking someone over, if they can still block attacks, save the backstab? Even attacks from behind are somehow magically blocked.

 

-Removed knockback. There's no longer any important feedback to tell when you're damaging someone or not. Pain/hit sounds are exactly the same for 100 damage as they are for 1 damage, and are very misleading. This problem, combined with the saber bugs, swings often go right through people, only to do 1 or 2 poking damage. Hence the complaints that saber combat feels random now.

 

-Kicking is difficult and inconsistent, especially for anyone with a ping over 100. It's impossible to kick anyone who's crouching.

 

-Unbalanced the force.

 

Completely over-nerfed dark side. Drain can no longer be used as a viable tactic to drain a lightsider, especially one who absorbs. Drain is self-damaging as an offensive force. Drain now removes more of your force pool than the victim's. Players can no longer run with grip. Grip no longer stuns victims for an after hit. Grip damage was decreased. Dark side players are left with absolutely no good defense, much less offense against light side players.

 

Light and dark were never unbalanced in 1.02. In fact, most of the complaints came from people inexperienced with using lightside. In this player's opinion, one simple thing could have been done to stem the complainers. Remove or lessen the startup cost for absorb. That way, even if a player was completely drained, a grip afterwards would only serve to give the lightsider a recharged force pool.

 

 

Suggestions for tweaks and bug fixes:

 

-Severely increase damage for sabers, especially after diminishing damage was introduced.

 

-Widen the arc for full base damage in a swing

 

-Improve the parrying/countering system by making anyone in a stunned/parried/weapon knocked- away animation to revert to walking speed. Either that, or make the "open and unblockable" animation last longer.

This would help promote more close saber fighting and give counters a more tactical feel.

 

-Give the players better feedback of what's hitting by bringing back knockback relative to damage done.

 

-Fix sabers clipping through players without damaging.

 

-Fix attacks being blocked while knocked over or while back is turned to the enemy.

 

-Increase the timeframe from jumping to kicking, or allow kicking at any time while midair. Easier, more stylish, stops accidental walljumps at the same time.

 

-Tweak DFA to cut through blocks.

 

-Revert poking damage back to 5.

 

-Up the ratio of yellow stance damage compared to blue stance, or bring back the ability to change the direction of slashes quickly for combos.

 

-Drain should cost much less, especially after absorb was tweaked.

 

-Bring back running and victim stun for grip.

 

-Completely remove saberthrowing from duels, especially no force duels. Set the default to level 2 force jump for No Force duels to allow for stunts and kicking.

 

 

In my opinion, lightsabers should fight like lightsabers. Every saber hit should be significant, especially when it's so hard much harder to land a hit with the new block system. Especially when people can just run away all day, instantly pull or push you to your doom, shoot with a gun or saber-throw at you from afar. Stop nerfing any more moves or forces, but instead, empower others to make them deadlier and more useful. Make gameplay more exciting instead of slowing it down.

[Etz]

I agree with almost everything you said, but what about blue stance? It was the weakest in 1.02 and it's the weakest stance still. What would you suggest to improve it? Hope you send this stuff to Raven as well as here.

[Xombie]

Well done

[BlackDove]

Originally posted by Etz

I agree with almost everything you said, but what about blue stance? It was the weakest in 1.02 and it's the weakest stance still. What would you suggest to improve it? Hope you send this stuff to Raven as well as here.

 

You need to play more, Blue Stance is the best now lol

[Dace]

Specially if u enjoy running backwards.

[BlackDove]

Nope, yellow one is best for that...you get to "clean" the whole back and some of the front...

[happydan]

surely a sabers damage doesnt matter wether its a hard swing or a weak one. the damage is caused by contact, like a laser, not the force of the swing, like a sword. so, in theory, all the stances should do equal swing damage. this therefore, would mean that the fast stance would be the most powerful, with the same damage as any other. the only difference being, that the weaker swing would make it easier to block/parry.

[Nill the Mean]

Have any of you watched the demo that came with it though? It's terrible! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was supporting 1.03 and hoping for fixes in 1.04 but after seeing this... I don't know about 1.03 anymore. It has some big problems.

[BlackDove]

Then just revert to 1.02...there are servers that support 1.02 still......

[w1ggl3s]

I been saying 1.03 was trash all along! Duh

 

Most of what you say can be changed is right.

 

Absorb needs to be seriously nerfed to re balance ctf

[w1ggl3s]

haha that demo is funny

 

 

Saber... The Flashlight. Comming to You newbs in version 1.03

[w1ggl3s]

I also think Roll needs to cost some mana

 

Roll is great. But roll has turned into a Absorb/roll constest.

 

Roll needs to be balanced with the speed of the game

 

And Backing up needs to be heavily nerfed

 

So people who actualy are good at offensive moves get rewared.

 

People are too scared to DIE in this game.

 

Lets get jk2 back to a heavily lethal, Fast action game .

 

Like 1.02 but with some changes

[Zek]

Originally posted by Etz

I agree with almost everything you said, but what about blue stance? It was the weakest in 1.02 and it's the weakest stance still. What would you suggest to improve it? Hope you send this stuff to Raven as well as here.

 

Blue is very powerful now. I just won a 20-win duel game with almost a flawless record using almost entirely blue, with the occasional red swing mixed in(when they start trying to predict you, change tactics). Remember you can do the lunge in the middle of a move combo; press crouch in the middle of a swing and hold forward while swinging, the next move will be a lunge. Makes it much more useful.

[jhky]

Or at least release the game source soon so mods can fix extremely disliked "issues."

[DarkMadMax]

Very good post .Very constructive (unlike 90% of posts here) . I agree and can sign under every word you wrote . I was playing since day 1 ,never had any problems nor with guns ,nor with dfa ,nor with force . And I tried to play every possible style (light ,heavy ,medium ,dark ,light,no force ,full force) - I found everything balanced (well frankly maybe only light stance was a bit weak ).

 

The only thing I wanted fixed was bugs (like u go down in duel queue if you change your force powers ,dismemberment broken etc.) . They fixed em ,they also fixed blocking (I dont have anything agasinst it ) , but all other things...... Imho biggest mistake was to tone down damage and touching force balance (only thing to make was reduce absorb cost -thats all). With damage toned down to almost useless condition force duels now means backstab or die . Saber swing means nothing now ,only pull/push and one hit kill .What is the point of using regular saber if you have to hit 4-6 times in medium? And is harder to hit too due blocking .

Practically you risk nothing when backstabbing because even if you miss and get a hit you doesnt risk to be killed for a long time due to tiny damage of regular hits .Before only 1 such mistake could cost you life,so ppl running backwards were ridiculous ,but not now. So push/pull kick backstab +only winning combination in force duels.And dark side is useless against any experienced players with light ,its just a suicide to use dark now .

 

And non force duels? -First its now harder to find server without throw (but thanks god they still exist),which transforms duels to throw contest.

Saber tip now is useless - and if before this 5 damage served to punish extremly defensive players ,it now serves nothing and makes long boring fights only longer. backstab do not play such a major role due to absence push/ pull, but nevertheless duels are

not interesting , they are just long . Mostly ppl just make this special move contest (light lounges ,medium SM), and/or hit and disengage tactic (all others are dying in first 10 sec newbs). No heavy close combat fight - they are useless now.

 

I still win most of all my fights but I dont liek the dules anymore - they became extermly boring , I am tired of making this old MSM,LSM ,hit and run,try to backstab combinations .I liked regular swings contests more .It just boring when u have to hit for 6 in medium before opponent dies .

 

So I think they "fixed" too much in this patch .

[flippo]

very nice demo. proves there are serious bugs plagueing this patch.

 

"gg" lol